Team Herald
MARGAO: The fishing season is over and most of the migrants working on the fishing vessels have returned to their home states. However, since August 1, 2017 till date when the fishing season ended, government authorities have not succeeded in checking the people working on the trawlers at Cutbona.
The Directorate of Health Services is expected to check the migrants and issue them a health card. According to officials of the Health Centre, Balli, under whose jurisdiction Cutbona comes, they had collected 1,335 slides and issued health cards to 485 people.
This means that there were at least 1,335 migrants working at Cutbona as the health officials collected that many slides for testing them for various diseases, including malaria.
However, the police who are supposed to verify the antecedents of migrants filled up only 701 forms of which 27 were returned from the home town police stations, while the other forms were not returned at all.
Significantly, what is important to note is that while health department collected 1,335 blood samples, the police filled up only 701 stranger forms leaving a huge gap of around 600 workers whose antecedents were not checked at all.
According to President of Cutbona Boat Owners Development Union/Society Savio D’Silva there are around 300 trawlers operating at Cutbona out of which 150 use purse seine nets, while other 150 are smaller vessels that just trawl.
Each of the smaller vessels are managed by at least six crew member, while the bigger vessels need 25 to 30 people to manage it. This would mean that there must be at least 4,500 people working on all the vessels at Cutbona.
Yet, the police could verify only 701 people and the health services officials collected samples of only 1,335 people.
leaving at least 3,150 people whose antecedents were not checked nor were they tested for any diseases they may be carrying.
